Friday, June 20, 2008

Television: The Return of the Saint's BMW R100RS.

"Actor Ian Ogilvy, who played Simon Templar in BBC television series The Return of The Saint, was responsible for this addition to The Saint's collection of vehicles. Ogilvy owned his first motorcycle at the age of sixteen, and has been a avid enthusiast ever since. Ogilvy was quoted in 1978 as saying, "It was my idea that Simon Templar should have a motorcycle as well as a car. After all, there are times when it can be more useful for him than a car."

The sign of the Saint, which appears on virtually every edition of every Simon Templar adventure.

Return of the Saint was a British action-adventure television series that aired for one season in 1978 and 1979 in Britain on ITV, and was also broadcast on CBS in the United States. It was produced by ITC Entertainment and ran for 24 episodes.

Ogilvy starred as Simon Templar, an independently wealthy, somewhat mysterious "do-gooder" known as "The Saint" who was created in 1928 by Leslie Charteris and featured in a long-running series of novels and novellas. The series itself is a revival of The Saint, a long-running 1960s series that starred Roger Moore as Templar. One major difference between the two series is that the original was mostly filmed in British studios and locations, while many episodes of Return were filmed on location throughout Europe.

So, what happened to the BMW? In a May 2008 discussion with Ian Ogilvy, he said that he didn't end up with bike after the series, and has no idea what happened to it after the end of shooting. Ian went on to mention that it was only used in two episodes of The Return of The Saint, and that the producers never really approved and just went along with the idea for a bit to make the actor happy."